As the demand for wireless communication services increases, communication service providers must continue to grow and adapt to meet that demand. Fundamentally, service providers need to connect their equipment, such as equipment at a base station, enterprise, home or building, to a network connection point, such as a metropolitan or backbone network.
In addition to the increasing demand for mobile data and voice services, data and voice services originating at non-nomadic locations, such as enterprise buildings or residential homes is also increasing. While the majority of this traffic is currently served by wireline technologies such as a T1 line, wireless technologies have developed to the stage where they too may now be used to serve this demand. This creates numerous possibilities for the network configuration. Thus network providers are faced with the often difficult challenge of optimally configuring the networks to meet certain business criteria, such as cost savings, and ease of access to aggregation points that provide connections to the broader network. Unfortunately, providers today lack tools that enable them to optimally configure their networks.